Who or What Should We Honor on Memorial Day? 🕊️

May 28, 2023

Hey there Yogis!

As you all know, Memorial Day is intended to remember, honor and salute the nation's fallen service members. But not all of those we should recognize fit neatly into that box.

What of veterans who end their lives after they have returned? In 2020, more than 6,100 veterans died by suicide. Memorial Day should be for remembering not only the heroes who lost their lives from physical wounds, but those who also died fighting mental injuries they sustained on the same battlefields.

In a country where, as we mentioned on our last post, more than one in five adults live with a mental illness, more than ever, on Memorial Day we should honor, above all, peace.

I. Remembering the meaning of Namaste

"I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the place in you which is of love, of truth, of light, and of peace. When you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, we are one".

II. Pigeon Pose: Eka Pada Rajakapotasana

Eka Pada Rajakapotasana is, for many, a much-needed deep hip opener. The hips are the central hub of movement in your body. When they’re tight, it’s like wearing pants that are too small—the reduced range of motion in your hips, hamstrings, and spine creates discomfort. Opening this region improves circulation to your lower extremities, provides better range of motion, and will help you feel more at ease during meditation, seated postures, and in your everyday life.

But practicing Pigeon isn’t just good for the physical body. The pose also offers important emotional benefits. When we bottle up negative emotions, we tend to store them in our lower back and hips. By focusing on these parts of the body, Pigeon helps to release emotional trauma, tension, and anxiety. It’s also a wonderful pose to practice when you want to balance your lower chakras. The root and sacral chakras are home to our needs for stability, trust, and intimacy. So by creating balance in these lower chakras, we can become more grounded and comfortable in our own skin.

How to Practice Eka Pada Rajakapotasana

Source: Yoga Journal

III. Awake: The Life of Yogananda | Biopic

Awake: The Life of Yogananda is a rounded portrait of the Father of Yoga in the West that celebrates his practical and uplifting art of spiritual living.

Filmed over three years with the participation of 30 countries around the world, the documentary examines the world of yoga, modern and ancient, east and west and explores why millions today have turned their attention inwards, bucking the limitations of the material world in pursuit of self-realization.

Directors Paola di Florio and Lisa Leeman have gathered an impressive array of interviews on Yogananda, his life and legacy. Among those featured are Kirtan master Krishna Das; George Harrison of the Beatles; bestselling author Deepak Chopra; Jesuit priest Francis Clooney; Varun Soni, the Dean of Religious Life at the University of Southern California; Sri Daya Mata; and Philip Goldberg, author of American Veda, and many others.

Awake is ultimately the story of humanity itself: the universal struggle of all beings to free themselves from suffering and to seek lasting happiness.

Watch trailer

Did you miss our last newsletters about Improving Mental Health, Embracing Vulnerability, Fresh Starts, and more?

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We hope you enjoyed today's post. Please, don’t hesitate to let us know your thoughts and suggestions. We would love to hear from you.

We'll get back to you shortly Yogis!

Xoxo

1 Response

Karen

July 31, 2023

“If you are depressed you are living in the past if you are anxious you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” —Lao Tzu

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